Journey to Recovery from Childhood Abuse

Differences between Fear and Anxiety

On my blog entry entitled Choosing Not to React to Emotions, a reader posted a link to an article about the differences between fear and anxiety. I had never really thought about the differences and found this article to be fascinating. I think this article also explains why I have had negative associations toward anxiety (I always equated “anxious” with “weak” and had a difficult time applying that label to myself.)

According to the article, while people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) frequently struggle with anxiety, the anxiety is a byproduct of a “conditioned fear response,” which distinguishes PTSD from other anxiety disorders. The article argues that the two terms of “fear” and “anxiety” are not interchangeable because they have different causes:

The difference between fear and anxiety starts with the proximity of the threat. The individual in a state of fear perceives the threat to be real and immediate, demanding an active response. The anxious individual, on the other hand, does not perceive an immediate threat; he is focused on a potential threat that looms in the near or distant future. ~ How Fear Differs From Anxiety

The article points out that the person experiencing anxiety is in a state of distress, not fear. The anxious person doesn’t do much to solve the problem because the source of the fear is murky. However, the person who is experiencing fear “perceives the threat to be real and immediate, demanding an active response.”

The article then goes into the scientific explanation, which I hear as the teacher talking in a Charlie Brown cartoon. (My sister is the scientist of the family, not me.) Apparently fear happens in one part of the brain and conditions us at a primal level to react to a trigger as if we are currently in danger. If I am reading this correctly, we get hardwired to react to a trigger as if we are currently in danger, which is very different from feeling distress about something that could happen. We react as if the danger is happening.

More scientific blah, blah, blah stuff, but I think the article is saying that fear conditioning does not imprint the same way that regular learning and memory does. I wonder if this is the reptilian brain that Michael is always talking about?? Interestingly, the fear-state causes changes in the brain, including speech. I wonder if that is why I talk very fast when I am triggered??

This disruption of learning is thought to account for many of the symptoms of PTSD; there is no opportunity for the fearful experience to be processed and transformed into the declarative memory system. Instead, the changes in cellular activity are confined to subcortical structures. Encounters with somatosensory stimuli associated with the trauma continue to trigger the conditioned fear and the cascade of events starts anew, thereby interfering with the opportunity to “learn” (explicitly) that the conditioned stimulus is not a real threat. ~ How Fear Differs From Anxiety

You can read the full article here. It’s fascinating even if you don’t follow all of the science stuff. I’ll have to email the article to my sister and get her to dumb it down for me.

This is fascinating Faith. Just after reading your recent posts, and also suffering so much anxiety myself, I wanted to ask whether you see ‘anxiety’ as an emotion in itself? Fear is labelled an emotion, whereas anxiety is labelled a symptom…and I’ve often had difficulties telling the difference between the two.
Could we all have the ‘dumbed down’ version of the article from your sister please?!

For me putting words with emotions serves the purpose of communicating to someone else what I am feeling in a very simplistic way. What I experience is way to complex for language. Lets call it explaining as best I can,

The problem with me communicating the emotions to another person is it is limited to the context of their experience tempered with their knowledge which they perceive as understanding which it is not. This is not limited to not experiencing the trauma that I did it is limited to not having this PTS body.

So I limit my using words as communication/explanation and accept the limitations and use it for what purpose it can serve.

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The reptilian brain which I am always writing about is really reptilian brains. The cognitive brains can override the reptilian brains for a while the reptilian brains are going to get their way sooner of later.

I will use eating as an example. My reptilian brains will tell be that it is hungry it will also tell me that if you eat right now we are not going to process the food in a way that is good for us. The simplistic concept that the body always process food the same is incorrect. So my cognitive brains take over. Now I understand that we need to get our body so that it can process food in a way that is good for it. Thing is this is a window and if I wait then I will get different information which is not related to the clock or really liner. Say my cognitive brains say no we do not need to eat I want to lose weight later my reptilian brains will say now you need carbs and fats and now. Later although the reptilian brains have a different later they will tell me. Get me sugar NOW. I will have missed the chance to get by body so it can process food.

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Learning is different for me because of my PTS. Educators who tend to perceive life where someone else is protecting them have a term that is called unavailable for learning. This is caused by the perception that the child is not leaning when in reality what they are teaching is not important in the child’s environment. It will not in anyway stop the horror or its aftermath.

My reptilian brains were worried that we would lose what we learned which is the ability to handle extreme trauma. Over time out reptilian brains have experienced the ability is still there. The cognitive brains have decided that should real danger arise again we will seek those than can handle real danger. (See New Orleans police running and hiding.)

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The perception of no threat is also incorrect. My body will not react to stimuli in the same way as a non-traumatized body. Just because there was no actual harm I have to deal with how my body reacted. I will have adrenaline and such going though my veins. Telling my reptilian brains that this is not a treat to the well being of the body does not work. Blaming the reptilian brains for what it has leaned does not help. Telling the reptilian brains you are safe now when there is adrenaline in our body that is harmful is not OK.

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For me I talk fast when my reptilian brains knowingly tell me something is up. It is my cognitive brain shielding so my reptilian brain can be ready.

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The PTS body and brain do not lend themselves to understanding through the perception of a non PTS body and brain, The PTS body and brain process based on its experience and always will. I find giving it new experiences is the only solution. If I shut out my reptilian brains they do not learn a thing. Go figure.

My cognitive brain has much experience in shutting out my reptilian brains. I can use all sorts of things. Reading, research, following a exercise routine good sleep hygiene, eating healthy and meditation are all very good ways to shut out my reptilian brains. For a while.

So I unlearned that what is true for others is not true for me. I had to lean to express and much of this was really playing. Once I heard my reptilian brains for a while they started telling me something different which ironically is more “normal”.

looking forward to this! I often use the word “anxiety” to explain to people why I won’t be able to do certain things but it never has felt like the right word… it always feels more like I am afraid, but that just didn’t make sense because I couldn’t really name the threat

That sounds interesting. Anxiety problems run in my family (at least in the last three generations) so I wonder if there’s any way brains can genetically be hardwired to react like that.

Thankfully, mine anxiety’s not that bad. I do have what I’d call panic attacks, but there nowhere near as severe as you described. Generally I just feel nervous for no reason, my heart starts skipping beats, my hands shake, I move around quickly and sometimes I get a choking feeling.

I calm myself down by telling myself I’m being stupid- I know better than to let myself get that freaked out over nothing. Usually, everything stops after that, but if it doesn’t work, I’ll have a cup of tea, take a break and read a comic book. I’m always fine after that.

Neurobiology of fear: simply put, your body does what it needs to do in order to ensure the bodies survival. It stops wasting it’s energy on anything other than life sustaining things. In other words, digestion stops, breathing and heart rate pick up. If you were a cat and a dog showed up. You would not stop to eat or pee or anything. You would run. Your body knows you must fight or run. Both of these options require more oxygen. Your muscles need more energy, thus you burn more glucose. This is also why after a fright you end up hungry.

Neurobiology of conditioned fear: (from http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/i/i_04/i_04_cl/i_04_cl_peu/i_04_cl_peu.html) “It is through the lateral nucleus that the amygdala receives information from the outside world. For example, in experiments with fear conditioned by sounds, the stimulus that exits the auditory thalamus enters the amygdala via the lateral nucleus.”
Simply put, when the conditioned fear was found to originate from the lateral nucleus of the amygdala, the fears are connected with particular stimuli. Thus, a certain sound, smell, sight, taste, feel, etc. can set it off.

By being connected to such a central part of the brain, it sets off a domino effect of sorts.

During testing they found certain areas of the brain became deactivated or went down a lot. Of these areas speech was one.

“This disruption of learning is thought to account for many of the symptoms of PTSD; there is no opportunity for the fearful experience to be processed and transformed into the declarative memory system. Instead, the changes in cellular activity are confined to subcortical structures. Encounters with somatosensory stimuli associated with the trauma continue to trigger the conditioned fear and the cascade of events starts anew, thereby interfering with the opportunity to “learn” (explicitly) that the conditioned stimulus is not a real threat. More importantly, the implicit learning that the conditioned stimulus need not be feared must occur at a subcortical level—in the amygdala itself.” ← Simply put: PTSD seems to have kept the brain from learning that these fears can end. The brain of a PTSD person never made the learning connections, and is pretty much stuck with activating the fear responses whenever certain stimuli trigger it.

Okay…I think I’m going a bit overboard here. ☺ I do tend to do that…

Anyway, what it boil down to is this:
Fear is a temporary thing. Anxiety is connected to conditioned fear.
When a person suffers from anxiety their body is “on guard” at all times. Then when a trigger pops up that “on guard” goes nuclear.

A person’s body can only stay at a heightened state for so long…but with the anxiety that state becomes the norm and it cannot relax.
With fear it is a spike and back to normal.